Scott vetoes money for discredited reading program

Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday vetoed money earmarked for a controversial reading program that was pushed by a veteran state lawmaker but called ineffective by state educators.

Scott signed a $70 billion state budget but first cut more than $142 million, including $750,000 meant for the Failure Free Reading program.

Failure Free Reading has been used in some Florida school districts for the past two years after money for the program was inserted into the budget by veteran state Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville.

The program did not prove worthwhile, according to data from the Florida Department of Education obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. Students in Failure Free last year, for example, did worse as a group on the reading section of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test than similar, struggling readers not enrolled in the program.

Despite those findings, Wise got more money for the program written into the Legislature's 2012 budget.

Failure Free, a North Carolina company, aims to teach struggling readers who have not responded to traditional, phonics-based instruction.

Wise, chairman of the Senate's education budget committee, has been touting the program for more than a decade and since 2000 has gotten millions of dollars for it put in the budget. Both he and the company's founder discount the state's data, saying the education department is hostile to a program that isn't phonics-based.